Retargeting Campaigns for MedSpas

Most medspa prospects do not book on their first visit to your website. They browse your Botox page, look at pricing, maybe check a few before-and-after photos, and then leave. Without retargeting, that visitor is gone forever — and every dollar you spent getting them to your site is wasted. We manage PPC for MedSpas across a wide range of markets, and the single biggest ROI lever we pull for medspa clients is retargeting. It routinely cuts cost per booked consultation by 30-50% compared to prospecting campaigns alone.

The medspa buying cycle is not instant. A woman considering lip filler might research providers for two to four weeks before committing. A body contouring prospect might take even longer. Retargeting keeps your practice in front of these people during the entire decision window so that when they are ready to book, you are the provider they choose — not the competitor they found on their second Google search.

This post covers how to structure retargeting campaigns that actually convert for medspas, including platform selection, audience segmentation, creative strategy, compliance guardrails, and realistic cost benchmarks.

Why Retargeting Matters More for MedSpas Than Most Industries

Aesthetic treatments are personal, often expensive, and involve trust. Nobody impulse-books a $3,000 CoolSculpting package. Even a $250 Botox appointment usually involves some comparison shopping. The research phase creates a gap between first click and booked consultation, and retargeting fills that gap.

Here is what the data consistently shows across our medspa accounts:

• Only 3-8% of first-time medspa website visitors convert into a lead or booking
• Retargeted visitors convert at 2-3x the rate of cold traffic
• Retargeting CPLs run 40-65% lower than prospecting campaign CPLs
• Patients acquired through retargeting show higher show rates because they have seen your brand multiple times before committing

If you are spending $5,000-$15,000/month on Google Ads and Meta Ads driving cold traffic to your site, allocating 15-25% of that budget to retargeting is the fastest way to improve your overall return. You are not paying to find new people — you are paying to convert the people you already found.

Retargeting Platforms for MedSpas

Not every platform works equally well for medspa retargeting. The right mix depends on your treatment menu, audience demographics, and creative assets.

For most medspa accounts, we run retargeting across Google Display, Meta, and YouTube simultaneously. Each platform catches prospects at different moments — Google Display while they read articles, Meta while they scroll social feeds, and YouTube while they watch content. The combined frequency creates the multi-touch exposure that drives bookings.

Audience Segmentation by Treatment Type

Running a single retargeting audience for your entire medspa is the same mistake as running one prospecting campaign for all your services. A visitor who looked at your Botox page and a visitor who researched your body contouring packages are at completely different price points, decision timelines, and motivations. They need different ads.

How to Segment Your Retargeting Audiences

Build separate retargeting audiences based on which pages visitors viewed on your site:

Booking page abandoners deserve the most aggressive retargeting. These are people who were one click away from becoming a patient. A simple "Still thinking about it?" ad with a direct booking link recovers 10-20% of these abandoners in a well-run campaign.

Multi-page visitors are your second highest-priority segment. Someone who viewed your Botox page, checked your about page, and browsed reviews is deep in the consideration phase. They need a nudge, not a hard sell.

Creative Best Practices for MedSpa Retargeting

Retargeting creative should not repeat your prospecting ads. The prospect already saw your initial pitch and did not convert. Now you need to address whatever held them back — price uncertainty, trust concerns, or simply distraction.

What Works in Retargeting Ads

Social proof creative. Testimonials, review counts, and patient stories are the highest-performing retargeting ad types across our medspa accounts. A retargeting ad that says "4.9 stars from 500+ patients" with a real testimonial quote outperforms generic treatment imagery by 2-3x on click-through rate.

Provider-focused creative. Aesthetic treatments are performed by real people. An ad featuring your injector or medical director builds trust that stock photography never will. Short video clips of providers explaining what to expect perform particularly well on Meta and YouTube retargeting.

Offer-driven creative. For price-sensitive treatments like Botox and laser hair removal, a retargeting ad with a clear offer ("$10/unit Botox this month" or "20% off your first laser session") gives the prospect a reason to act now instead of later. Use urgency only when the offer is genuine.

Before-and-after results. Where platform policies allow, showcasing real patient outcomes is extremely effective. Note that Meta has specific restrictions here — more on compliance below.

What Does Not Work

• Generic brand awareness ads with no specific CTA
• The exact same ad the prospect already saw
• Aggressive "You forgot to book!" messaging that feels intrusive
• Low-quality graphics or stock photos that undermine credibility

Frequency Capping: How Often Is Too Often

Overexposure kills retargeting performance and damages your brand. Nobody wants to feel stalked by a medspa ad following them across every website for six weeks straight.

Set frequency caps based on the platform:

If your frequency exceeds these thresholds and CTR starts declining, your creative is fatiguing. Rotate new ad variations every 2-3 weeks to keep performance stable. We typically maintain 3-4 active creative variations per audience segment at any given time.

Ready to recover the medspa leads you are already losing? Our team builds retargeting systems that turn website visitors into booked consultations. Get a free PPC audit for your medspa and see exactly where your retargeting gaps are.

Compliance Considerations for Healthcare Retargeting

Medspa advertising operates under healthcare ad policies on every major platform, and retargeting adds an additional layer of sensitivity. You are showing ads to people based on their interest in medical or quasi-medical procedures, and platforms treat this seriously.

Google Ads Restrictions

Google's healthcare and medicines policy restricts retargeting for certain treatment categories. You cannot retarget users based on health conditions or sensitive treatment interests in many cases. However, general medspa service retargeting — targeting people who visited your website without using health-condition-based audience lists — is permitted. The key is to build your audiences from your own website visitor data (first-party data) rather than relying on Google's in-market or affinity audiences for healthcare topics.

Meta Ad Policies

Meta removed detailed targeting options related to health topics and restricts the use of Custom Audiences for healthcare-related advertising in certain contexts. For medspa retargeting on Meta:

• Use website Custom Audiences based on pixel data (page visitors), not health interest targeting
• Avoid ad copy that implies knowledge of the user's health status ("We noticed you're interested in weight loss")
• Do not use before-and-after imagery that implies unrealistic outcomes
• Ensure landing pages comply with Meta's healthcare ad policies

HIPAA Considerations

If your medspa collects patient information through your website, be careful about what data flows into your ad platforms. Do not upload patient email lists to create Custom Audiences without proper consent and a Business Associate Agreement where required. Website visitor retargeting based on page views is generally lower risk than CRM-based retargeting using patient records, but consult with a healthcare compliance professional for your specific situation.

Cost Benchmarks for MedSpa Retargeting

Retargeting costs less than prospecting on every platform because you are targeting a smaller, warmer audience. Here is what we typically see across medspa retargeting campaigns with proper segmentation and creative rotation:

Total retargeting budget for a medspa spending $8,000-$15,000/month on paid media should land between $1,500 and $4,000/month. That is roughly 15-25% of total ad spend, which is the range we find optimal. Below 15% and you are underinvesting in your warmest audience. Above 25% and your retargeting pools are usually too small to absorb more spend without frequency issues.

Real Campaign Structure: How We Build MedSpa Retargeting

Here is a practical example of how we structure retargeting for a mid-sized medspa running Google Ads and Meta Ads with a $12,000/month total budget:

Google Ads Retargeting Setup

• Campaign 1: All Site Visitors (Display) — 30-day audience, general brand reinforcement ads, $600/month
• Campaign 2: Treatment Page Visitors (Display) — 21-day audience, treatment-specific ads matched to pages visited, $500/month
• Campaign 3: Booking Abandoners (Display + Search RLSA) — 14-day audience, offer-driven ads with direct booking CTA, $400/month

Meta Ads Retargeting Setup

• Campaign 1: Website Visitors - Injectables — Visitors to Botox/filler pages, 14-day window, testimonial and offer creative, $600/month
• Campaign 2: Website Visitors - Body/Laser — Visitors to body contouring and laser pages, 30-day window, results-focused creative, $500/month
• Campaign 3: Engaged Visitors — 3+ page views or 60+ seconds on site, 21-day window, provider trust-building creative, $400/month

YouTube Retargeting Setup

• Campaign 1: All Site Visitors — 30-day audience, 15-30 second provider introduction videos, $300/month

Total retargeting spend: $3,300/month (27.5% of budget). The remaining $8,700 goes to prospecting campaigns on Google Search and Meta that feed these retargeting pools with fresh visitors.

This structure ensures every visitor who does not convert on their first visit sees your practice multiple times across multiple platforms over the following weeks. The treatment-specific segmentation means they see ads relevant to what they actually looked at — not a generic medspa ad that feels disconnected from their original interest.

Measuring Retargeting Performance

Do not evaluate retargeting in isolation. Its purpose is to improve the efficiency of your entire paid media program. The metrics that matter:

• Assisted conversions — How many total conversions did retargeting touch, even if it was not the last click?
• Overall blended CPL — Is your combined prospecting + retargeting CPL lower than prospecting alone?
• Incremental lift — Compare booking rates during weeks with retargeting active vs. paused
• View-through conversions — Especially important for display and YouTube, where clicks are low but brand recall drives later direct bookings

We typically see retargeting improve overall blended CPL by 20-35% within 60 days of launch, even when the retargeting campaigns themselves represent a small slice of total spend.

Stop losing the medspa prospects you already paid to attract. Retargeting is the most efficient use of your ad budget, and most medspas are either not doing it or doing it poorly. Talk to our team about building a retargeting system for your medspa that turns browsers into booked patients.